Here we talk about opening or closing other applications, switching to them (bring their windows to front) or accessing an application’s windows.
The three global functions openApp(), switchApp() and closeApp() introduced in Sikuli 0.9 and 0.10 are still valid in the moment, but they should be considered as deprecated. They are being replaced by a new App class introduced in Sikuli X. This class makes it possible to treat a specific application as an object with attributes and methods. We recommend to switch to the class App and its features, the next time you work with one of your existing scripts and in all cases, when developing new scripts.
General hint for Windows users on backslashes \ and double apostrophes “
In a Sikuli script in normal strings enclosed in ” (double apostrophes), these special characters \ and ” have to be escaped using a backslash, when you have them inside the string. So for one backslash you need \\ and for one ” you need \”. In a string enclosed in ‘ (single apostrophes), a ‘ has to be \’ and a ” is taken as such.
To avoid any problems, it is recommended to use the raw string r'some text with \\ and " ...', since there is no need for escaping. This is especially useful, when you have to specify Windows path’s or want to setup command lines for use with App.open(), openApp(), os.popen or Jythons Subprocess module.
a fictive command line example:
cmd = r'c:\Program Files\myapp.exe -x "c:\Some Place\some.txt" >..\log.txt'
openApp(cmd)
This is a comparism of old (xxxApp) and new (App.xxx) functions:
- Open an application: openApp() –> App.open()
- Switch to an application or application window: switchApp() –> App.focus()
- Close an application: closeApp() –> App.close()
Open the specified application.
Parameters:
|
This function opens the specified application and brings its windows to the front. This is equivalent to App.open(). Depending on the system and/or the application, this function may switch to an already opened application or may open a new instance of the application.
Examples:
# Windows: opens command prompt (found through PATH)
openApp("cmd.exe")
#Windows (since X-1.0rc3): with parameters (no sense, only to show ;-)
openApp(r'cmd.exe /c start c:\Program Files\myapp.bat')
# Windows: opens Firefox (full path specified)
openApp("c:\\Program Files\\Mozilla Firefox\\firefox.exe")
# Mac: opens Safari
openApp("Safari")
Switch to the specified application.
Parameters:
|
This function switches the focus to the specified application and brings its windows to the front. This function is equivalent to App.focus().
On Windows/Linux, the window is the one identified by the application string. This string is used to search the title text of all the opened windows for any part of the title matching the string. Thus, this string needs not be an application’s name. For example, it can be a filename of an opened document that is displayed in the title bar. It is useful for choosing a particular window out of the many windows with different titles.
On Mac, the application string is used to identify the application. If the application has multiple windows opened, all these windows will be brought to the front. The relatively ordering among these windows remain the same.
Example:
# Windows: switches to an existing command prompt or starts a new one
switchApp("cmd.exe")
# Windows: opens a new browser window
switchApp("c:\\Program Files\\Mozilla Firefox\\firefox.exe")
# Windows: switches to the frontmost opened browser window (or does nothing
# if no browser window is currently opened)
switchApp("mozilla firefox")
# Mac: switches to Safari or starts it
switchApp("Safari")
Close the specified application.
Parameters:
|
This function closes the application indicated by the string application (Mac) or the windows whose titles contain the string application (Windows/Linux). this function is equivalent to App.close(). On Windows/Linux, the application itself may be closed if the main window is closed or if all the windows of the application are closed.
Example:
# Windows: closes an existing command prompt
closeApp("cmd.exe")
# Windows: does nothing, since text can not be found in the window title
closeApp("c:\\Program Files\\Mozilla Firefox\\firefox.exe")
# Windows: stops firefox including all its windows
closeApp("mozilla firefox")
# Mac: closes Safari including all its windows
closeApp("Safari")
Run command in the command line
Parameters:
|
This function executes the command and the script waits for its completion.
The Application Class
Sikuli-X introduces the new class called App to provide a more convenient and flexible way to control the application and its windows.
Using class methods or instance methods
Generally you have the choice between using the class methods (e.g. App.open("application-identifier")) or first create an App instance and use the instance methods afterwards (e.g. myApp = App("application-identifier") and then later on myApp.open()). In the current state of the feature developement of the class App, there is no recomendation for a preferred usage. The only real difference is, that you might save some ressources, when using the instance approach, since using the class methods produces more intermediate objects.
How to create an App instance
The basic choice is to just say someApp = App("some-app-identifier") and you have your app instance, that you can later on use together with its methods, without having to specify the string again.
Additionally App.open("some-app-identifier") and App.focus("some-app-identifier") return an app instance, that you might save in a variable to use it later on in your script.
Differences between Windows/Linux and Mac
Windows/Linux: Sikuli’s strategy on these systems in the moment is to rely on implicit or explicit path specifications to find an application, that has to be started. Running “applications” can either be identified using their PID (process ID) or by using the window titles. So using a path specification will only switch to an open application, if the application internally handles the “more than one instance” situation”.
You usually will use App.open("c:\\Program Files\\Mozilla Firefox\\Firefox.exe") to start Firefox. This might open an additional window. And you can use App.focus("Firefox") to switch to the frontmost Firefox window (which has no effect if no window is found). To clarify your situation you may use the new window() method, which allows to look for existing windows. The second possible approach is to store the App instance, that is returned by App.open(), in a variable and use it later on with the instance methods (see examples below).
If you specify the exact window title of an open window, you will get exactly this one. But if you specify some text, that is found in more than one open window title, you will get all these windows in return. So this is good e.g. with Firefox, where every window title contains “Mozilla Firefox”, but it might be inconvenient when looking for “Untitled” which may be in use by different apps for new documents. So if you want exactly one specific window, you either need to know the exact window title or at least some part of the title text, that makes this window unique in the current context (e.g. save a document with a specific name, before accessing it’s window).
On Mac OS X, on the system level the information is available, which windows belong to which applications. Sikuli uses this information. So by default using e.g.App.focus("Safari") starts Safari if not open already and switches to the application Safari if it is open, without doing anything with it’s windows (the z-order is not touched). Additionally, you can get all windows of an application, without knowing it’s titles.
Note on Windows: when specifying a path in a string, you have to use \ (double backslash) for each (backslash) e.g. myPath = "c:\\Program Files\\Sikuli-IDE\\Lib\\" )
Usage: App.open(application)
Open the specified application.
Parameters:Returns:
|
an App object, that can be used with the instance methods. |
This method is functionally equivalent to openApp(). It opens the specified application and brings its window the front. Whether this operation switches to an already opened application or opens a new instance of the application depends on the system and application.
Usage: someApp.open() where App instance someApp was created before.
Open this application.
Usage: App.focus(application)
Switch the focus to an application.
Parameters:Returns:
|
an App object, that can be used with the instance methods. |
Usage: someApp.focus() where App instance someApp was created before.
Switch the focus to this application.
Usage: App.close(application)
Close the specified application.
Parameters:
|
This method is functionally equivalent to closeApp(). It closes the given application or the matching windows (Windows/Linux). It does nothing if no opened window (Windows/Linux) or running application (Mac) can be found. On Windows/Linux, whether the application itself is closed depends on weather all open windows are closed or a main window of the application is closed, that in turn closes all other opened windows.
Usage: someApp.close() where App instance someApp was created before.
Close this application.
Usage: App.focusedWindow()
Identify the currently focused or the frontmost window and switch to it. Sikuli does not tell you, to which application this window belongs.
Returns:a Region object representing the window or None if there is no such window. |
On Mac, when starting a script, Sikuli hides its window and starts processing the script. In this moment, no window has focus. Thus, it is necessary to first click somewhere or use App.focus() to focus on a window. In this case, this method may return None.
On Windows, this method always returns a region. When there is no window opened on the desktop, the region may refer to a special window such as the task bar or an icon in the system tray.
Example:
# highlight the currently fontmost window for 2 seconds
App.focusedWindow().highlight(2)
# save the windows region before
firstWindow = App.focusedWindow()
firstWindow.highlight(2)
Usage 1: App(application).window([n]) an App instance is created on the fly.
Usage 2: someApp.window([n]) where App instance someApp was created before.
Get the region corresponding to the n-th window of this application (Mac) or a series of windows with the matching title (Windows/Linux).
Parameters:Returns:
|
the region on the screen occupied by the window, if such window exists and None if otherwise. |
Below is an example that tries to open a Firefox browser window and switches to the address field (Windows):
# using an existing window if possible
myApp = App("Firefox")
if not myApp.window(): # no window(0) - Firefox not open
App.open("c:\\Program Files\\Mozilla Firefox\\Firefox.exe")
wait(2)
myApp.focus()
wait(1)
type("l", KEY_CTRL) # switch to address field
Afterwards, it focuses on the Firefox application, uses the window() method to obtain the region of the frontmost window, applies some operations within the region, and finally closes the window:
# using a new window
firefox = App.open("c:\\Program Files\\Mozilla Firefox\\Firefox.exe");
wait(2)
firefox.focus()
wait(1)
# now your just opened new window should be the frontmost
with firefox.window(): # see the general notes below
# some actions inside the window(0)'s region
click("somebutton.png")
firefox.close() # close the window - stop the process
Below is another example that highlights all the windows of an application by looping through them (Mac):
# not more than 100 windows should be open ;-)
myApp = App("Safari")
for n in range(100):
w = myApp.window(n)
if not w: break # no more windows
w.highlight(2) # window highlighted for 2 second
General notes:
- Be aware, that especially the window handling feature is experimental and under further development.
- Especially on Windows be aware, that there might be many matching windows and windows, that might not be visible at all. Currently the window() function has no feature to identify a special window besides returning the region. So you might need some additional checks to be sure you are acting on the right window.
- Windows/Linux: The close() function currently kills the application, without closing it’s windows before. This is an abnormal termination and might be recognized by your application at the next start (e.g. Firefox usually tries to reload the pages).
- Even if the windows are hidden/minimized, their region that they have in the visible state is returned. Currently there is no Sikuli feature, to decide wether the given window(n) is visible or not or if it is currently the frontmost window. The only guarentee: window()/window(0) is the topmost window of an application (Mac) or a series of matching windows (Windows/Linux).
- Currently there are no methods available to act on such a window (resize, bring to front, get the window title, ...).
Some tips:
- Check the position of a window’s returned region: some apps hide there windows by giving them “outside” coordinates (e.g. negative)
- Check the size of a window’s returned region: normally your app windows will occupy major parts of the screen, so a window’s returned region of e.g. 150x30 might be some invisible stuff or an overlay on the real app window (e.g. the “search in history” input field on the Safari Top-Sites page, which is reported aswindows(0))
- If you have more than one application window, try to position them at different coordinates, so you can decide which one you act on in the moment.
- It is sometimes possible to use the OCR text extraction feature Region.text() to obtain the window title.